refugee project news

Refugee Project-Untitled Portrait 1, by member of the “Group Portrait Workshop,” run by Hands On Art Workshops, at the Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya A note from Laura Moran Hello, I sit to write this week’s newsletter after having just submitted a book review I wrote for an academic journal. The book was about people living in immigration detention centers in Australia—people who are seeking refuge in Australia but have not yet been recognized as refugees by the Australian government. Australia has a number of these facilities within its borders, and as the book illuminates, they function rather like prisons. But the book was about much more than the despicable conditions of detention centers and the daily deprivations suffered by those forced to live in them. The book was written from the perspectives of those who visit these facilities, those who recognize the fundamental equality of the people who live there and who seek to help them from a place of solidarity. Such help can take many forms, but more often than not, the most meaningful acts are the small ones—sharing food, sharing stories, playing a board game to pass the time. Through the lens of such connections, the book offers a counter narrative: one of humanity, hope, resilience and friendship that penetrates the grim circumstances it otherwise describes. I like to think a fundamental purpose of the Stone Soup Refugee Project, and indeed, the Stone Soup project in general, is foregrounding such humanity. By providing a platform for young people across the globe to connect with one another in creativity, we offer an opportunity to listen to one another’s stories, and in doing so, for a few brief moments, to see the world from another perspective. The portrait featured here was completed by a young girl living in Kakuma Refugee Camp in northwest Kenya. I know she would be happy that we are viewing it today. This portrait was submitted to us through one of the Refugee Project’s partner organizations, Hands On Art Workshops. As I seek to broaden the scope of the Refugee Project and forge connections with new organizations, please write to me at laura@stonesoup.com if you know of any potential contacts or have ideas you’d like to share. We, at Stone Soup, are always looking for volunteers to help us fulfill our mission of inspiring and empowering youth creativity around the world. For a full list of volunteer opportunities available at Stone Soup, please visit our new volunteer page. With warmest wishes, Class is in session! Please join us for the continuation of our virtual classes in the Winter 2023 term beginning January 21, 2023! Workshops run every Saturday until March 25th. Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett: At 11 a.m. Pacific time every week, Conner Bassett will teach his writing workshop focusing on the nuts-and-bolts of writing. Conner teaches English at Albright College and has experience instructing younger writers. He is a novelist, poet, and translator in addition to being a brilliant teacher. Please note: We regretfully announce that Isidore Bethel’s filmmaking class, Introduction to Short-Form Filmmaking, has been canceled due to low enrollment. We may offer the course in the future, possibly in a different format. If you have questions about the cancellation, please write to education@stonesoup.com. Stone Soup is published by Children’s Art Foundation-Stone Soup Inc., a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit organization registered in the United States of America, EIN: 23-7317498.  

Lighthouse in the Rain (iPhone 8, Lightleap) by Tatum Lovely, 12; published in Stone Soup November 2022 A note from Laura Moran Dear Friends, As William mentioned last week, with the end of the year upon us, we at Stone Soup, are turning our attention to the annual fundraising drive. This year is a very special one as we mark the Fiftieth Anniversary of Stone Soup! This is cause for both celebration and determination. We celebrate the monumental achievement of showcasing and inspiring the vast literary and artistic talents of young people across the globe for fifty years and counting. In marking this moment though, we, at Stone Soup, must also focus on our determination to ensure another fifty years of this important work. Hence, this moment is a call to action as we turn to you, our Stone Soup supporters and donors, to help us reach our fundraising goal of $125,000. This money is pivotal to upholding the crucial platform Stone Soup provides for developing young writers and artists. A prominent element of Stone Soup, and one that is close to my heart, is The Stone Soup Refugee Project. The core goal of the Refugee Project is to extend the opportunities provided by Stone Soup-namely, publication, training, and creative engagement-to displaced youth across the globe. In other words, through the Stone Soup Refugee Project, we aim to provide a forum for these young people to tell their own stories, in their own voices. Compared to the broader Stone Soup project, the Refugee Project is still in its early, developmental phase-but what we have achieved in a short span of time is also cause for celebration. We’ve forged connections with ten plus organizations working on-the-ground with refugee youth worldwide, and through these connections, we’ve collected over three-hundred pieces of writing and artwork created by refugee youth. We’ve displayed some of these pieces in our print magazine, and all of them in our newly created Refugee Project web portal, which was built from scratch since the inception of this project. We’ve been able to connect, in real time, with refugee youth in one of the world’s largest refugee camps, Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya to deliver a series of creative writing workshops via skype. And finally, we’ve begun to explore forms of engagement and creative exchange between refugee youth and the broader Stone Soup family, through endeavors such as the Half-Baked Art Exchange, launched in June of this year with partner organization, the My Start Project. While we take great pride in celebrating these milestones, in order to ensure the continuation and expansion of the important work that we have embarked upon with the Stone Soup Refugee Project, we need the financial support of you, our Stone Soup supporters. We are beyond grateful for your support thus far, without which none of that described above would have been possible, and we humbly ask for your continued support to enable the expansion and continued development of these important endeavors central to the Stone Soup Refugee Project. In particular, funds raised in this drive will allow us to implement an expansion of the Refugee Project web portal in order to display the outcomes of a creative exchange between refugee youth and Stone Soup readers through the newly launched Half-Baked Art Exchange, as well as to support the expansion of this program. The newly created webpage will: detail the process of this exchange; display original pieces of artwork by youth in Kakuma Refugee Camp; display collaborative pieces of artwork in which our Stone Soup participants had the chance to learn about life in camp for these young refugees as they built upon their artwork; and finally, artist’s statements written by participants. This workshop was a powerful and unique experience and we hope, with the aid of your contributions, to extend the opportunity for many more to participate and display the results of their artistic collaboration. Thank you, once again, for believing in us and our mission. Your continued support has made this project possible. And to all who celebrate, wishing you a relaxing Thanksgiving and time spent with loved ones. With warmest wishes, Stone Soup is published by Children’s Art Foundation-Stone Soup Inc., a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit organization registered in the United States of America, EIN: 23-7317498.